Tides

Looking out the window to see blue skies and the warm sun persuaded me to head to the beach. I drove to Waveland and looked for a place to park so that I could eat my picnic lunch in the sand. As I drove, my eyes were not drawn to the blue rippling water, but instead to the scenes of lasting devastation and new-found hope. Four and a half years later, wooden stilts emerge from the ground, still holding nothing but ghosts of houses.


The piles upon piles of rubble and broken houses that plagued the landscape in the immediate (and not-so-immediate) aftermath of Hurricane Katrina have long been carried away. But everywhere you look on the Mississippi coast, the scars remain.

But that is not what defines this area--it is the resilience and courage of the people who have lived through so much, but will never give up their unique way of life and love of the coast. And homes ARE rising up next to the lonely stilts. Higher than ever, they just dare the water to rise again.

And we all hope that it never will.